December has come and gone, and we are in the cold and grey January of Wisconsin. Luckily, there has been a warm spell over the last few days, which has been a welcome respite after a week of bitter below zero temps.

The holidays are our time to reconnect as a family and spend time together. We celebrated Ilyana’s birthday and took a trip to the Mall of America for our family holiday gift. The girls enjoyed riding the park rides, and each got a special gift. Ilyana’s choice was an American Girl doll outfit, and Evelyn wanted to get something at the Disney store. She is big into fairies and princesses right now.

Eight for Ilyana has been a joy so far. She has a love of science and math, and a deep love of reading. We’re finding her with a nose in a book more often than not. We had some fun getting geeky gifts for her, and watching her enjoy them.

Below are some pictures of the goings on, and a couple videos to show you how much the girls have grown. Enjoy!

Ilyana got a snap circuits kit to learn about electronics, an engineering experiment kit, and an electroluminescent sign kit.

She also got a Minecraft torch, which made her the happiest kid ever.

At the American Girl store, she picked out the skateboard and rollerblade set. That’s my girl!

Evelyn picked a Frozen set with teeny tiny little parts. Amazingly, we haven’t lost any yet.

Ilyana rode rides that went too fast for pictures, including the arial swings, tilt-a-whirls, and rotating platforms. Evelyn and I hit a few more sedate rides together.

Time marches on here, with life getting busier by the moment. The girls are getting bigger, work is busy, and we seem to add a few more activities each week. We are making it through, though, and enjoying our moments together. Ilyana is doing very well in second grade, and both girls are trying out gymnastics. It’s fun to have some big kid activities starting for both of them.

In other news, Evelyn is four! She is very excited to be four “all year long.” She keeps asking if she’s going to be four tomorrow. I love how her mind is trying to wrap around how we mark time.

Enjoy the pictures!

We are very much into pink this year, but Pikachu was a notable exception.

She really enjoyed the butterfly outfit and Rapunzel’s that Grandma Laurel and Grandpa Jerry sent.

And then there’s the Frozen PJs from Grandma Ann (along with a little Hello Kitty that went to school with us today)

We have new gymnastics clothes from Grandma Sue too, and the gymnastics lesson.

We had cake and fun with some friends too (and there was much silliness)

We called this the “compromise cake” since big sister can’t stand chocolate (and there’s no way we can eat a cake without Ilyana’s help)

Overall, it was a great birthday weekend.

Big sister was even a good sport.

Oh, and we also had Halloween, but I didn’t post pictures. Here’s a great visual of the difference between the girls right now: